Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Digging the fact that Kevin Shields is being recorded without stacks of Vox amplifiers, or that he can't pluck from a line of Jaguars and Jazzmasters leaned against the walls, or that he can't instruct a trusty engineer to fetch him new mic poppers or Rotovibe pedals. Shields is here, taped and ever twisted ("I'm crazy, but not mentally ill"), without his usual array of studio playthings and that alone makes this record worth checking out. The MBV completist sect will be all over this like white indie kids on Ricemilk -- and will certainly grouse after hearing it. "The strings of music tightening around him," Patti Smith says over Shields' "chordal architecture," quoting from the poem she wrote for dear friend Robert Mapplethorpe, "forming a cocoon within." That's what those folks ever-yearn for. I think it's a nice palette cleanser before the long-awaited My Bloody Valentine release sees the light of day.

No comments: